


The Five Things She Learns About Him … And Then The One Thing He Learns About Her

by Pollydoodles



Series: Just Five Damn Things [2]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-02-10
Updated: 2016-03-08
Packaged: 2018-05-19 15:10:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,895
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5971471
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pollydoodles/pseuds/Pollydoodles
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bucky is … Somewhat competitive.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Bucky is … Somewhat competitive.

Bucky is … Somewhat competitive. 

She should have realised, really. Steve, for all the rousing patriotism and the good ol’ boy routine, won’t take a challenge lying down. And of the two, he’s the one with morals. Of course Bucky wouldn’t handle losing very well. 

Steve wandered into the common room and found on Darcy on her knees, collecting up scattered things from the floor and grumbling to herself not quite as quietly as she apparently thought she was being. He sucked in a breath, hands on hips, and took a wild guess.

“Bucky?”

She paused, sat back on her heels and flipped her dark curls over her shoulder as she turned to look at him. She waved a small figure at him which, upon closer inspection, was half a rook. Steve noticed the other half of it had rolled towards the couch. He wasn’t sure he could – or even wanted to try to – picture how Bucky had managed to do that. 

“Turns out he doesn’t really have the patience for chess.”

“Kinda surprised you do, Darce.”

“Well, I’m a surprising kind of person, Steve.” 

“Hmmm.” Steve dropped to his knees as well and scooped up more fallen chess pieces, handing them over to Darcy, who tucked them neatly back into the cardboard box in which they belonged. “So what happened?”

“He …Well.” She paused, then grinned up at him. “It started okay, but then I got the upper hand.” She shrugged, toying with one of the knights as she spoke. “He started cursing in Russian then flipped the board and left. I say left, it was more of a storming out, if you want to get down to brass tacks about it.”  
He could imagine. Didn’t actually have to imagine. He knew the others thought it was a Winter Soldier thing, but Steve knew better. Bucky had always had a quick temper and a short fuse, and not being the best at something really ground his gears. Steve had always found it the most endearing part of his friend, but he was aware that not everyone was a glutton for punishment like he was. 

“Don’t take it personal. Stark wouldn’t speak to me for a week after Mario Kart incident.” 

Darcy cocked an eyebrow and glanced at him, the question coloured in her eyes. 

“He’s not got great fine motor control in the, in the, uh-“

“Robo-arm?” Darcy supplied helpfully, cheek pressed to the floor as she struggled to reach under the couch, fingertips frustratingly just brushing against the piece she was trying to retrieve. She swore sharply as it rolled away from her grasping hand. 

Steve helpfully lifted one end of the sofa and she huffed slightly at him before grabbing the little wooden figure. Settling back on her heels as Steve dropped the couch back into place, she opened her fist and looked down at the chess piece. It was a Queen. 

“Yeah, the, uh, Robo-arm.” Steve said, sitting down heavily in front of her. “Anyway, his hand-eye coordination is pretty good, obviously, but his hand couldn’t keep up with that and concentrate on making only light movements.”

“Ah,” Darcy nodded sagely. “Crushed controller.”

“Initially.” Replied Steve, also nodding. He paused before continuing, remembering the shouting, the cursing and then the loud crash that had brought silence to the room. 

“Shortly followed by crushed-controller-through-flat-screen.”

Darcy grimaced in sympathy and resisted the temptation to cross herself in memory of a fallen friend. She’d wondered why the common room TV had been de-commissioned briefly, and now she knew. 

“Hang on-“ She said, something occurring to her suddenly. “How comes Stark wouldn’t speak to you for a week?”

Steve twisted his tip on his top teeth, looking a little shameful before he managed to answer her. 

“Well… I was losing too.”

“Oh, Steve.”


	2. He's good at languages.

He's good at languages. 

Just picks ‘em right up, without ever seeming to actually learn them. She’d walked in on him watching foreign language films, without subtitles, in the common room. If it were anyone else, she would have thrown the empty popcorn box at them and accused them of being a hipster idiot, but he wasn’t. Also because he kind of scared her still. 

He was just watching it, like a regular film. 

Even ASL with Clint - it seems as though he'd only met him the once and yet the very next time their paths crossed there wasn't a word expressed verbally. Not that Bucky had communicated all that much with anyone, but there was some quick flash of hands tossed in Barton’s direction that the other man had later informed her was a lazy ‘Where’s your dog today?’ 

Darcy, who had a mental block on anything not English, and if she were being totally honest even then she had her moments, found it incredibly frustrating. 

All these words rolling around in his head, all that opportunity to be able to talk to anyone, and he didn't use it, not really. Was so economical with his speech that actually she’d assumed he had had some kind of mute fallout response from the PTSD, when they’d first been introduced. 

Turns out it was selective, and really he just didn't like that many people. She could see it frustrated Steve too, though Bucky spoke to him more than anyone else, and cornering the big blond in the kitchen one morning he'd confessed to her that it jarred because Bucky had always been easy with words, always had something to say, some joke to make. 

Darcy turned to the history books, which told her much the same thing. James Buchanan Barnes, the only Howling Commando to die – huh, little did they know – in service of his country, had been an easy-going ladies man with charm to spare. A handsome boy with matinee idol looks and a mouth that just kept going, by all accounts. And that was just from Steve, never mind the endless contributions that had flooded in from women who’d experienced a night or two with Barnes. 

“What’s that?”

Darcy yelped and dropped the book, it slipped from her fumbling fingers and hit the floor – catching the toes on her right foot as well. She yelped again, this time in pain and yanked her foot up to her lap, trying to massage the pain away from it. 

Bucky knelt in front of her and picked up the book curiously. 

Darcy internally made grabby hands for it, desperately not wanting him to see that she’d been researching him, but was in reality glued by embarrassment to the couch. She massaged her throbbing toes compulsively, it was a pretty hefty hardback and she could actually see an indentation in her big toe where the corner had connected. 

Bucky, still on his knees, flipped slowly through the book. His face moved from puzzlement to what she thought looked like consternation and finally eased its way into a grin. Darcy recoiled slightly, not having seen it before close up. Barnes was not one for smiling. Very occasionally she’d seen the corners of his lips twist in such a way that a very loose description might call it a smile, and only ever at Steve. 

“This is me.” He said seriously, gripping the book one-handed at the centre of the split of the two pages, and thrusting it towards her. His flesh hand appeared at the corner and tapped enthusiastically at a black and white photo of him and Steve. Steve was still small, shy eyes ducking away from the camera flash but Bucky – oh, Bucky was facing the camera head on and with dark lashes framing his wide eyes and hair swept across and away from his forehead just so, looked like so much a golden age film star. 

Darcy nodded, her tongue catching in her mouth. “I know.” She managed to force out, her voice small. 

Bucky ran the tip of his tongue lightly over his lower lip then sucked it under his teeth thoughtfully. His eyes dropped, brows knitting together and then- “Did Steve tell you?”

Darcy shook her head slowly, side to side, her blue eyes wide and fixed on the dark-haired man gazing up at her from the floor. She hugged her knees into her chest. 

He exhaled. 

“Steve tells me.” He said, an air of confession about it, and Darcy was hit hard by the realisation that this was the most she’d ever heard from him. Including him talking to Steve. She wasn’t sure whether to be pleased or worried. 

“Tells you what?” She asked, voice low but curious, and she finds herself leaning forward, gazing over the tops of her knees at him.

He flips more pages before he answers, trailing a finger across some of the photos as he goes. Some of him, but mostly of Steve as he was before the procedure. Photos of them laughing, dressed up, dressed down – an endless stream of memories flipping past in monochrome. 

“Who I am.”

He looks up at her, dead in the eye as he speaks, and Darcy feels a chill run through her bones. She swallowed, biting against her own bottom lip and mirroring his earlier action subconsciously. 

“Do you remember?” She blurted out, unable to stop herself.

“Remember what?” He asked, his head tilting to one side as he considered her, dark shaggy hair tumbling onto one shoulder and Darcy itched to run a hand through it. 

“That.” Darcy pointed towards the book. He’d stopped it on a page which began to detail the war years. There was a large photo of Bucky in the centre of the page, an unusual colour photo which Darcy thought had probably been re-touched and restored. His deep blue jacket stood out as he looked away from the camera, caught in profile by the unnamed photographer. 

He looked down at the page, following the line of her finger and frowns slightly. He traces the outline of his own body, captured forever in gloss and print, and sighs. 

“Not this. Not really.” His eyes remain on the image, drinking in the man who he could not remember fully, whose life darted across his memories like some errant flashing light, and would probably never be able to become again. 

Darcy took a chance and slipped off the couch, tucking herself next to him but not touching him. She took in a deep breath and looked sideways at him over her shoulder, tugging her knees to her chest and wrapping her arms around them, smothering herself in the oversize sweater she was wearing. He looked down at her impassively, sat next to her. 

“What do you remember?” Bucky started slightly at her words and she immediately tried to swallow them back into her mouth, along with the foot she’d apparently inserted into it without meaning to do so. “I mean, it’s fine, you don’t, you don’t have to-“

He shook his head at her and the stuttered words caught in her mouth. 

“No one asked me that before.” He said, and that small smile tugged at his lips again, just briefly, enough to convince Darcy not to disappear inside her own sweater as she’d been contemplating. “Everyone wants to tell me what I should remember. No one ever asked me what I remember anyway.” 

Darcy stared at him, her eyes wide, and he chuckled. Honest to god chuckled. 

“Bits and pieces.” He admitted. “Some days more than others.” 

“Well I guess you are technically a senior citizen.” She said without thinking, then clapped a hand over her mouth in horror. He barked out a laugh and it sounded harsh against the silence. 

“Yeah, yeah, I guess I am.” He said, looking down at the book still in his hands. He turned another page and this time there was a full page photo of himself as a fresh faced teenager, all cocky eyes and exaggerated stance for the camera. Darcy looked over his shoulder at the photo, his features dark in the monochrome picture, eyes already belying his youth. 

And that before war had even been declared, she thought to herself. 

“It’s a wonder you can remember anything at all,” She threw caution to the wind and said, watching him like a hawk for his reaction. “Being so old.” She added slyly, not picking up any hostile tension in his body language. Anyone else, Steve for example, she would have followed up with a nudge to the ribs and a cheeky wink, but this was Barnes and she was still reeling from the amount he’d spoken aloud. 

He turned to her slightly, shoulder bent towards her body, still tucked up with knees to her chin; and then he shoved her. Just lightly, for him at least, and she toppled sideways, unable to stop herself. Pushing herself back up, scrambling as quickly as she could, shoving back handfuls of unruly dark hair from her face, she gaped at him and he laughed back at her, delighted at his actions. 

“You’re kind of an asshat, aren’t you, Barnes?” She said, incredulously. 

“Asshat?” His eyes sparkled back at her. “Can’t say these senior citizen ears know that word.”

Darcy shoved him in response, but hit only metal arm and she moved back, not him. 

“You know every goddamned word.” She mumbled, thinking of all the foreign films he’d queued on Netflix. 

“On va voir.” He responded, eyes boring into hers.


	3. He is tidy. Fastidiously so.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He is tidy. Fastidiously so.

He is tidy. Fastidiously so. 

Steve’s the same, and it both fascinates and confuses Darcy, who is very much more the type of girl who lets things pile up and then, when it really becomes a problem, chucks a throw over the pile and ignores it for another few weeks. She knows she could probably stand to be a little tidier, but it’s not killing anyone. 

Bucky, on the other hand, is a neat freak bordering on obsessive compulsive, as far as Darcy’s concerned. 

He cleans the glass he’s just drunk from, as soon as he finishes it. Just walks right on over to the kitchen, washes it up – by hand, mind – neither he nor Steve seem overly trusting of the dishwasher. That said, it had been altered by Tony and now addressed anyone who approached in a cheery Scottish brogue before offering various services. Even Darcy had found that odd the first couple of times so god only knew what kind of circuits it fried in the brains of two men who should’ve been living their lives out before even the regular non-tinkered-with version was a regular staple in American homes. 

Bucky dries his glasses carefully, and puts them back in the cupboard. Everytime.   
The first time he does it, Darcy’s jaw drops. 

“What?” He says, noticing the look on her face.

“Why’d you do that?” She answers, head tilted to one side in confusion. 

His face mirrors hers. “Do… what?”

“That.” She says, gesturing towards the sink and the washcloth he’s slung over his shoulder nonchalantly. She understand the drive behind it so little that she can’t even find the words to describe what he’s done. “The… The glass? The… Cleaning? Straightaway? People don’t do that.”

He frowns, then looks over at Steve, who’s crashed on the couch and flicking through TV channels at top speed. “Hey, Steve.” He hollers. “D’you clean your glass rightaway?”

“Uhuh.” Comes the reply, and Darcy resists the urge to facepalm herself. 

Bucky turns back to her. “See? S’normal.” 

He enjoys vacuuming. No matter how many times that Stark tells him that they have cleaners, a whole team of cleaners – one for every floor, actually – and they’re paid to go ‘round after him and do it all again so he’s really only wasting his own time, Bucky just smiles and carries regardless. 

“I think it’s meditative.” Sam remarked to Darcy as they sat on the couch watching Bucky sweep across the floor again, methodically rolling the vacuum up and down the carpet. “You know, how some people fall asleep to white noise and stuff? Gotta be something like that.” 

Darcy hummed, eyes on the dark-haired man whose sleeves were rolled to the elbow, sweats hanging low on his hips, bare feet following the vacuum as he rolled it one-handed and lifted a chair with the other to reach underneath. 

“Maybe he likes the patterns? The up and down?” She ventured, head tilted to one side and her dark curls tumbling down her sweater-clad shoulder, brushing up against Sam’s arm. 

“He likes it because we never had one.” 

Sam and Darcy started and looked up, Steve smiled at them from upside down, hanging on the back of the couch as he looked down at them. Darcy wriggled and twisted until she was facing him, knees bent under her body and hand resting on the back of the couch. 

“Tell me more.” She demanded, and he chuckled in response. 

“They were a luxury item, Darce.” He explained, opening his palms out as he spoke. “Buck’s always been a tidy guy, but we could never afford anything like that. Maybe the likes of Howard Stark had something similar – heck, he probably invented one, knowing him – but not regular people.” 

Darcy’s mouth shaped a surprised oh as she gazed up at Steve, his words setting her mind whirring. She was trying to imagine a world without vacuum cleaners. Not that she used them very often, but they were just kind of there. Something that was always around, not something she’d ever really thought about. 

His room is cleaner than a prison cell, and slightly less personal. 

Darcy hovers at the threshold, unsure of herself in his private space, even though he’d beckoned her to follow him so she was there at his invitation. 

“I can hear your brain ticking, Lewis.” He says, back to her and rooting through the top drawer on his bedside cabinet. “Quit it.” She rolls her eyes, unseen, but steps into the room properly anyway. She crosses to the window, unable to bring herself to perch on his bed, that seems way too over-familiar, especially with a guy who has a bedroom that looks like he’s never even slept in it – and there’s nowhere else for anyone to sit. 

She wraps her arms around herself and stares out of the window, gazing across the skyline as the afternoon begins to bleed into the evening light. 

“Is it a military thing?” She asks suddenly, breaking the silence and he jerks up and looks at her quizzically. “This.” She says, waving one hand in a sweeping motion around the room.

He grins, and looks down briefly before fixing his eyes to her. 

“What makes you say that?” He asks, voice low and moving closer to her. 

“Steve’s the same,” Darcy said, shrugging her shoulders. “Figured it was some kind of army-hangover thing. Don’t they do some kind of inspection or something? Check the corners are folded to a ninety degree angle and run a white glove over surfaces to check they’re properly spotless?”

He laughs. “I dunno where you get this stuff, Lewis.” He’s close now, very close. If she had the balls to reach her hands out, she’d only have to move them a couple of inches and she’d be pressing them against his chest. Darcy tried very hard not to think on that, but the image had burned itself into her brain unrequested. She swallowed. 

When he spoke again, she could feel his breath against her cheek. 

“It’s not an army thing.”

“No?” She said, and forced herself into looking up at him and capturing his eyes. 

He squinted his eyes slightly and looked away before answering. “We never had nothin’, Darce.” She tried not to focus on the fact that he’d used Steve’s nickname for her. She didn’t think he’d ever called her anything but Lewis before, or, very occasionally, kid, despite spending an increasing amount of time together. 

“Barely had the spittle on our tongues to our names.” He grinned ruefully as he spoke. “You grow up not havin’ too much, you learn to take care of it. Keep it clean, keep it runnin’. Even beyond the times when by rights it shoulda upped and died on ya.” 

She could hear the Brooklyn creeping back in, taking over his voice, and shivered to hear it. She knew it meant he was seeing memories in his head, flashes of the good ol’ days, times that were good, if hard. The days before the war, before HYDRA, before Project Re-Birth and when he still had all four functioning limbs. She kind of hated herself for finding it so goddamned attractive to hear him talk that way, when she knew it meant he was reminiscing about a time he had only the barest grasp on. 

“I’m careful ‘bout things that belong ta me, Darce. Stuff I care about.” He said in a low voice, and she felt his breath ghost over her skin again as he spoke. “Real careful.” It was definitely her imagination that his blue eyes swept across her face with something akin to want, and she knew damn well it was her own desire that fabricated the feeling of his fingers fleetingly brushing against her bare arm. 

“You gotta take care o’ what you got, right?”


	4. He’s good with his hands.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He’s good with his hands.

He’s good with his hands. 

There’s something about Bucky’s brain that just understands machinery, instinctively gets how things go together. This fascinates Darcy, because, if she’s being honest, she struggled to put Lego together as a child, so watching Bucky strip an AK-47 on the common room coffee table in under two minutes, before grunting and then re-assembling it does things to her. 

Wicked things – things she has no business thinking about a man who’s still officially in recovery, has quite possibly the world’s worst case of PTSD and, probably most importantly, was born in 19-fucking-17. Even if he does look like he belongs Cosmopolitan’s top one hundred sexiest men. 

Pepper was somewhat less impressed to find a disassembled semi-automatic rifle in pieces across the living room, and even less impressed when he’d re-assembled it to full working order. “Sergeant Barnes,” She said in clipped tones. “Firearms belong on the range and in the field, nowhere else.” 

He’d dipped his head in deference to the redhead, then tipped Darcy a wink as Pepper turned away from him. 

Died. She died, now she was dead. 

Then she’d walked in on him and Cap working on Steve’s motorbike. She’d only been trying to find Jane, who’d gone walkabout again – most likely in search of Bruce, who, when he couldn’t be found in his own lab had often been stolen away by Tony. 

Steve had on a grease-stained wife-beater and looked of course like he belonged on some calendar dedicated to the general hotness of the male physique, but Bucky – Bucky was stripped to the waist, grease streaked across his chest and a light sheen of sweat covering him; shining invitingly under the harsh strip lighting in the workshop. He had to be the only goddamned person that looked good under strip lighting. He grunted as he lay under the bike, the engine suspended above him and his metal arm whirring as he tinkered away with the bike. 

Darcy’s brain short circuited and for a hot, heady moment, all she could do was stand and gape at him. 

“You okay, Darcy?” Steve’s concerned tone cut through the metaphorical steam rising in her head and she turned to him abruptly, trying to control the wild look she was sure was in her eyes, and almost equally as sure she was doing a poor job of tamping it down. 

“Jane.” She squeaked, and it was too high, too loud, to be normal. She tried again. “Uh, Jane, I’m looking for… Jane?” She was relieved to hear her voice return to something akin to normal, although Steve was fixing her with an odd look that his innate politeness was only just managing to cover. 

“Nah, doll, haven’t seen her.” Bucky called lazily, still lying prostate under the bike. She took a deep breath and turned on her heel to face him. He stared back up at her, impossibly blue eyes dancing under the harsh lighting and a dark smudge of something that was probably engine oil marking his cheek. 

Why is that a turn on? She asked herself. Since when is dirt and grime a thing, for gods sake? Get it together, Lewis. 

She managed to make some excuse and escape, some half-assed lame sounding reason which annoyed her later when she thought about it because it was actually the truth, she had been trying to find Jane. It was hardly her fault that half-naked super soldiers had chosen to lounge around in the workshop, looking like extras from the 2016 Pirelli calendar. 

It was most unlike her, but she opted to head for the gym. 

Forty minutes later, she’d run out a lot of her frustration on the treadmill, iPod jammed in her ears and just about resisting the urge to sing along. Barton had joined her at one point, pounding his feet rhythmically on the treadmill next to her. She wasn’t sure for certain, but had made a calculated assumption that he probably wouldn’t appreciate an off-key rendition of Journey’s Don’t Stop Believing as an accompaniment to his workout. 

Shame really, more people could use some music in their workout time, she mused. 

Darcy had just soaped up her hair with shampoo when the shower ran cold. Yelping, she jumped back and flattened herself against the cool tiles, trying to edge her naked body away from the suddenly freezing spray. The tiles did little else for her and at the cold touch against her bare ass she jerked forward slightly. 

Sighing to herself, she stuck a tentative hand through the shower spray quickly, fumbling for the shower bar and trying to turn it off. Just as her fingers grasped on the chrome knob, the shower turned blisteringly hot. This time, she shrieked unashamedly and fell gracelessly out of the shower cubicle, tumbling backwards into the aisle. 

“Darcy?” 

She died, again. 

She turned with eyes wide and found her worst nightmare staring back at her. Her body wanted to squeak again, but her mouth moved without sound. Belatedly, she attempted to cover herself with wholly inadequate arm placement. 

“You okay?” Bucky asked, concern in his voice, standing in front of her and gazing over at her. Darcy was torn between sarcasm and death by embarrassment. Deciding that one person could only die so many times in the one day, she opted for sarcasm. 

“Yes, absolutely peachy-keen in my birthday suit right about now.” She snapped, and his eyes widened as though he’d just realised the situation. Ouch, Barnes, she thought. Embarrassing enough to have him see her full frontal, but much more cutting that he’d not even really taken it in. Jeez, she’s more than aware that she’s not typically considered Vogue-worthy but surely the girls were worth a second glance?

He wordlessly handing her a towel, grabbing it from a peg next to the shower and she turned her back to him, wondering in honesty why she was even bothering considering he’d firstly seen everything anyway and secondly, didn’t seem overly bothered by it. Still, Darcy wrapped the towel around herself and then turned back to him. 

“The shower-“ She said. “It’s gone hay-wire. First freezing cold, then I nearly burned the skin off the back of my hand when I tried to turn it off.”

He started towards her, picked up both her hands and drew them to his face. Darcy squeezed her arms in tight to her body, trying to trap the towel against her, just in case. “You okay?” He said, his voice soft and boy, was she not expecting that. 

“Um,” She stuttered. “Yes?” 

Why is that a question, idiot? Do you not know your own state of health?

Stupid question. No, right at that moment she had no idea what the state of her health was and there was a real good chance she might not be able to tell you her own name, with Bucky Barnes almost pressed up against her, concern in his blue eyes and her own nearly naked body just inches from him and screaming internally to make it closer. 

He hummed, then stuck his metal arm into the shower spray and turned it off. 

“You have shampoo in your hair.” He said, matter of factly, turning back to her. 

Darcy’s hand snuck up to her hair and fondled it slightly, feeling the suds still filling out the curls. She nodded. 

“You can- you can use my shower, if you want?” He said, his voice low and eyes trained on her. “Until I fix this one. It’s probably the shower valve just needs recalibration, it’s letting through the wrong amount of cold water to offset the hot water – easily fixed but I need my toolkit first.” 

Darcy stared up at him, transfixed, and not a little turned on by his technical talk. 

“So, um, if you want – just head up to my apartment.” He looked down at her and she found herself nodding along with him, movements small and shy. “I won’t be there.” He burst out. “In case you were worried. I’ll just grab what I need and be here fixing this.” 

Darcy forced a smile on her face before she skirted around him.   
Jeez, if only you knew …


End file.
